A study of Sm-substituted SrM magnets sintered using hydrothermally synthesised powders

Anisotropic SrM magnets with Sm substitution, which is observed to have the largest beneficial effect both on the coercivity and on the inhibition of grain growth at high temperature among the other elements such as La, Nd and Pr, were investigated. The average grain size of the samples decreases with increasing Sm/Sr ratio. All the magnets with Sm additions exhibit a bigger coercivity and remanence than those of the SrM magnet without Sm and the coercivity of the magnets increases with increasing Sm/Sr ratio. EDX quantitative analysis suggests that the solubility of Sm3+ in the SrM-type structure is very small and that the Sm3+ preferably goes into SrFeO3-x, which is probably located around the SrM grain boundaries. The coercivity mechanism of the magnets is nucleation controlled. The formation and the distribution of the SrFeO3-x phase around the SrM grain boundraies probably provides the inhibition of SrM grain growth, the reduction of the reverse domain nucleation at the grain surface and the isolation of the SrM grains. All these factors would contribute to the improvements of the coercivity of the magnets with sin additions. (C) 2005 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.